The Prevalence and Treatment of Pain Among Rural Medicaid

Beneficiaries with Disabilities Pain has an enormous impact on the lives of many people with disabilities. Recent researchsuggests that nearly 80 % of people whose primary disability is not a pain disorder are still limited by pain as a secondary condition. As many as half of those people report that their pain is ongoing, intractable and limiting (Ehde, Jensen, Engel, Turner, Hoffman & Cardenas, 2003). Our research suggests strong associations between an individual’s pain and his or her quality of life, depression and the number of hours worked. Background: Our research on the difficulties of recruiting people with disabilities into both health education seminars and physical activity programs identified pain as their greatest barrier to participation. Our latest longitudinal study examined the experience of people with disabilities who have pain and their perceptions of 14 different pain treatments. Methods